New report shows renewables are a drag on Australian productivity. By Joanne Nova.

For some reason the pursuit of global teenage-girly weather-control has meant Australian workers are less productive. Who could have guessed that attempts to stop storms, floods and droughts in a hundred years would not make us richer today? I mean, apart from everyone?

In the last 25 years we’ve spent 126% more on capital costs but only improved output by 14%.

Now even the Productivity Commission is warning that renewable green investment is holding back the nation.

Australian productivity was rising until it suddenly fell off a cliff around May 2022 (see the graph below). Coincidentally this was the moment the moment the Albanese Labor Party first got elected and went gangbusters with renewable energy. It seemed to be worthy of an annotated arrow, so I added that in…

 

 

Matthew Cranston in The Australian:

Australia’s falling productivity levels have been driven down by the replacement of coal-fired power plants with billions of dollars in renewable energy projects, the Productivity Commission has declared, as it warns governments to make only the most efficient, cost-effective investments.

After Energy Minister Chris Bowen made a push alongside the UN’s top climate official this week for further investment in renewable energy, Productivity Commission deputy chair Alex Robson released a study showing that such investment had “contributed to a productivity decline” and Australians were working harder for less …

Estimates have placed the government’s annual spending commitments to climate and renewable energy at more than $9bn a year.

So wasting all that money on renewables (including the Snowy Hydro debacle — we could have built four nuclear power plants for the cost of that white elephant) and blowing up coal power stations has made us poorer!? Incredible.

I could have explained to them the errors in the climate models that meant the whole exercise is a waste of time, but our ruling class was determined to go electric and virtuous. Have you noticed that the climate predictions have not come true? Or that the official IPCC climate data showed it’s been warming since 1650, until they rewrote history in 2000? Or that it’s not warming nearly as fast as the models say it should, despite all the finagling with dodgy thermometers?

It’s not just immigration that lowers our productivity.